Smarter giving

Personally, I believe that some companies give to charity or even have a CSR and sustainability department just in order to have a better, “cleaner” image on the market. Just read their annual sustainability reports (yes, I do read them!) and you’ll see, sometimes it’s just a lot of b***it.

So, how to give smart, personally and for your company, when you really care:

The first step is to think of the field that you care the most or that best responds to your life’s principles :

Do you think that health is the most important thing in the world?

Or that education can change everything for the better? …

Or that climate change is a real issue?

Once you have decided in which field you want to involve, decide how you want to involve: when people think of NGO’s, money comes immediately to mind. But there are other ways in which you can help:

By sharing their beliefs and good actions on the web

By participating in a fundraising

By giving skills

By giving old clothes and objects

By giving money

…

Whatever you choose to give, make sure the NGO has a more or less good image on the web. Unfortunately there are too many people taking advantage of goodness, so you’re never too careful.

Check the administrative costs and how much money actually goes to projects: small ones can sometimes be even better than the usual worldwide NGO’s, that spend a lot of money on fancy CRM tools and have huge administrative costs.

See also what’s the NGO’s reactivity to current pressing issues in their fields. If their goal is to work only on one topic for long-term, ok, but otherwise you should make sure that they do attend to pressing topics.

See also what’s their flexibility and transparency level: can you give to a certain project, or only to the organization in general? Personally I find it more interesting and more personal when I can choose the project.